Hidden Dreams III : White and Red
by Jintsu
Summary: Revamped version of my oneshot, as of July 27. What if Rei didn't die in her confrontation with the Sixteenth Angel? What if she just disapeared? Please R


White and Red II

By Jintsu

Disclaimer:

As much as it agonizes me to say this, I did not create any of these characters except for Kenneth T. Harrington. Much to my disappointment, I also did not create the initial plot for this series. That credit goes to Hideaki Anno alone.

Therefore, the hoard of slavering lawyers can go lie down for a century or two. This was written for fun, not for profit. I am only borrowing the characters for a little while. I promise I will give them back!

I rewrote this in response to EvSoc Reviewer Ikarus Onesun's review and critique of the original story. After reading his comments, I realized that too much was left unsaid. Plot bunnies were frolicking all over the German landscape. Therefore, taking up my literary shotgun, I have hopefully gunned down most of them. ;)

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**PRESENT-DAY GERMANY**

**June 03, 2007**

**Diskothek Costa-Marbella**

**In the town of Beilingen **

Second Lieutenant Kenneth T. Harrington, from the Twenty-Second Fighter Squadron, was sitting in the almost empty and dimly lit bar of the Disco Costa-Marbella. In front of him was a half-empty pitcher of Bitburger Dark beer. Beside the pitcher were a black and white hair barrette and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. Kenneth was fairly well into his cups, obviously trying to drink away some hidden pain. His clothing whispered military; but his bearing was not very military- looking at this point. Shoulders hunched, head tilted down as he looked into his glass; a western cigarette dangling out of the left corner of his mouth. An almost-palpable cloud of despair seemed to hover over the distraught service member. Turning on his barstool he grimaced, and faced the couple sitting to his right. A young man of Asian descent, and a young woman of possibly German descent, were avidly listening to his story. Seeing that his audience was attentive and had refreshments before them, he continued his rambling monolog:

"I'll tell you what heartache is. While I was out hiking last year, I found a young woman who was lost in the woods. I tried to take her to the Polizei, but she was scared to death of going to _any_ of the authorities. She could speak English, but I couldn't speak Japanese at all, at that time. She was really different: Japanese but an albino with blood-red eyes and light blue hair. Heartbreakingly beautiful. I ended up taking her back to my apartment to get her something to eat and try to find out something about her."

Kenneth refilled his guests' glasses and poured the last of the beer in his own. He caught the bartender's eye, snapped his fingers, and stated: "Ein Bier, bitte." He stubbed out his burned-down cigarette, and lit another. Taking a long draught of the cold, rich brew, he continued with his tale.

"It almost seemed like she had some sort of amnesia, because she didn't know she was in Germany. It never seemed to bother her that she was lost in a foreign country and that she didn't know how she got here. But it seemed like nothing ever bothered her. Very stoic girl, that Rei."

"I got her something to eat, after she explained that she was vegetarian, and then tried to find out what I could about her. She told me her name was Rei, and that she lived in Japan. She also stated that she was fourteen years old, but she looked closer to my age. When I led her to the full-length mirror in the bathroom, she couldn't believe her eyes. She stood there for the longest time, just staring at herself…"

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ONE YEAR EARLIER:

Rei stared into the mirror, the shock of seeing herself older than she had expected had rooted her to the spot.

'_How is this possible? My facial features and body correspond to being approximately twenty years of age. I remember the program Doctor Akagi ran to show us what we would look like after adolescence. This is dismayingly similar to what I remember my second decade of life should look like. If this is my chronological age, what year is it now?'_

Rei then slowly turned to face Kenneth and asked:

"Lieutenant Harrington, I may have more difficulties than I thought. The extent of my dilemma will depend upon what year I am residing in. What year is it at this point?"

Kenneth looked at Rei with a slight disbelieving look on his face, and then stated, to him, the obvious:

"Rei, this is 2006; June third, 2006. What year did you think it was?"

"I would rather not say."

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BACK IN REAL-TIME:

"…After a short conversation, she asked to use my phone. She tried a handful of different numbers, but got no response from any of them. Next, she asked to use my computer. After showing her my set-up, she started to surf the net. I watched over her shoulder as she did some lightning-fast searches."

Mister "Suzahara" took a gulp from his glass of beer and then asked in passable broken English, "What for was she searching? Didja to see any of the results get?"

His companion, a Miss "Teufelrot", almost gagged on _her_ beer from hearing her cohort mangle the language. She glanced over at him and gave him the evil eye, while she spoke in Nihongo: "I told you to practice your language skills, but no….You want to sound like an Osakan potato-boy. Baka yaro."

"Monku bakkari iu-nayo!"

"Inpo! Konjö nashi!"

Kenneth caught the quick exchange in Japanese, but said nothing. He took another drag off his cigarette and closely watched the couple.

Suzahara's face turned a fine shade of scarlet as his mouth silently worked, trying valiantly to think of a comeback that would stop Teufelrot's verbal abuse.

Kenneth took pity on the young man sitting next to him and tried to help him out.

"You know," he softly quipped, "I sounded just like that when Rei tried to teach me Nihongo. I must have frustrated her to no end. However, she never showed any irritation on her part, she just calmly corrected me and got on with the lesson. Sometimes I wondered if she had any strong emotions; she never seemed to exhibit any traits of them. Almost like, she was wrapped up in a cloak of logic and cold calculation. Maybe she watched too many episodes of "Star Trek"?"

The couple giggled at his comments, like there was some inside joke.

Kenneth then whetted his whistle with another long pull from his glass, and then went on with his story.

"I took her in, gave her a place to stay, food to eat, and even bought her clothing so she wouldn't have to wear that wet-suit thing she had on when I met her. She taught me Nihongo, so I could understand her better. I showed her the countryside; we went all over Germany on the weekends that I had off. Nevertheless, I could see that she was still thinking about someone she had left behind. Someone that was very special to her."

With this last sentence, his guests became quiet and introspective. In his semi-inebriated state, he noticed the woman's look of melancholy and sorrow, but attributed it to her companion and being out getting drunk. Using his left hand to gesture and make his points in his conversation, he continued in a louder voice.

"I never pushed her; never laid a hand on her that wasn't wanted. I figured that all good things come to those who wait. After six months, I knew that I had fallen in love with her. Rei was kind and caring, in her own way, but I knew that she was still waiting for her lover. It hurt me to see that. However, I still cared for her. If I would have had another month, I think that I might have had a chance to open her heart."

"I didn't get that month."

He then drained his glass, and then refilled it from the full pitcher. As cigarette smoke from his left hand wreathed his head in a grey spiral, tears welled up in the corners of his brown eyes as he again relived the painful memory in his mind.

"HE showed up. It was the same area that I found Rei in, a year ago to the day. We were walking through the forest; I was describing the change of the seasons….and HE stepped out from behind a stand of pines. He had one of those suits on, but his was blue and white. He was of Asian descent, almost my height and close to my age, also. It looked like he was in shock for a moment, then he smiled and whispered her name. Rei loudly said his name, I think it was Shinji, and she ran to him and embraced him like he was her husband."

"After seeing that, I knew my chances of being with Rei were nil to a negative o-nine. I turned around and left them in the woods. I drove here and have been at this bar for the last three hours."

Suzahara, setting next to Kenneth, drained his glass and refilled it from the pitcher. He then turned to the morose serviceman and clasped him on the shoulder and said:

"Yo, man. I'm sorry your luck about, but thanks for out lookin' for Rei for us. It took us forever almost to find her…."

"SHUT UP, SUZAHARA!"

Kenneth looked back and forth between the two people sitting next to him, as questions were starting to bubble up from his depressed mind:

The different shades of skin tone between Suzahara's arm and neck.

The obvious antagonism between his two guests.

He doesn't get the chance to ask his questions..

The female of the pair, a stunningly beautiful redhead, mincingly strode over to the other side of him, and looked intently into his eyes. With a slight smirk on her face, she asked:

"Have you ever thought of leaving your present locale? I know of a place where we might talk and get to know each other a little more."

"Don't to the Red Menace listen, man, she will your mind up screw 'till you think straight can't!", the one named Suzahara exclaimed in a jovial fashion.

Kenneth looked first at Suzahara, then at Teufelrot and said:

"Let me finish my beer, and then let's talk."

Miss Teufelrot snatched his glass and drained it in a single gulp. With a Cheshire cat grin, she smiled at him and said:

"All done! Let's go!"

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FOURTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER:

The trio made their way back to the area in which Kenneth had first found Rei.

"Why am I back here? I don't want to remember this!" Kenneth exclaims, rubbing his temples with the heels of his hands.

All three were standing in a large clear-cut area of the forest, which was just outside of town. Western European pine trees were arranged in neat rows, obviously machine-planted and spaced with mathematical precision.

"This is where the temporal rift is located, and where we were able to synchronize to this time-frame." the red head states.

"What the HELL is a temporal rift, and what do you mean by a time-frame?" he asks in a frightened voice.

The couple punched a button on their wristwatches, and a sound like a high-pitched whine crossed with the sound of a zipper being pulled down, emanated from the area of the clearing.

In something looking like heat mirage, two forms suddenly appeared. Kenneth looked up, and up, and further up. Two huge humanoid shapes took form in front of him, kneeling down on their right legs. One was snow-white, with black trim while the other was blood red with black and orange trim.

Kenneth was frozen in place; the impossibility of this happening had shorted out his ability to reason or move.

Rusty gears in his brain started to engage, and long-forgotten memories of watching anime began to surface.

"U... UNIT-02! A…AND A MASS-PRODUCTION UNIT? REI….REI AYANAMI…..SHINJI IKARI? ASUKA?"

His head whipped around to stare at the pair of people behind him. He shuffled around to face them, then brought a shaking hand up to point at the male in their midst.

"YOU…..YOU'RE TOJI! TOJI SUZUHARA!"

"In the flesh." he replied.

"And I am Asuka Langly Sohryu, charmed, aren't you?" she added to Toji's comment.

Asuka sauntered up to Kenneth, stopping right in his personal space, and said:

"We are at a five-to-one ratio here in this time-frame. For every year that has passed here, five years have gone by in our home time-frame. Rei was here with you for a year; for us it was five long, excruciating years. We finally locked on to Rei's transponder and Shinji and Toji made the jump back to this time and dimension. When Shinji brought Rei back home, I talked with her and learned about you, Kenneth. She told me how caring and considerate you were towards her. You had every chance to try to jump her bones, but you didn't. That shows me that there is something about you that I would like to get to know better."

Toji laughed from his position behind Asuka, as he pointed an accusing finger at her. With a mirth-filled voice, he declared:

"Get to know better….HA! That's a good one, Sohryu! Now leg pull the other!" He shifted his attention to Kenneth to explain his outburst.

"She shanghaied me sneaking into back here permission without. She hasn't able been to find her "Prince Charming" at home, so looks she here. Five years loneliness of she had while we all waited on Akagi-sempai to way find here. In time all that, Asuka finds that Shinji in love with Rei is. No chance she has to make amends and try to win him for herself. She more depressed was after our wedding. Hikari tried to tell you, Asuka. You needed to open up before you become Christmas cake."

Asuka had kept silent through Toji's diatribe on her, which was a massive change for her. She did give him a patented "look-of-death," as if to say: "Just wait until I talk to your wife!"

Asuka then took her right hand and caressed Kenneth's cheek, her azure eyes gazed into his coffee coloured ones.

"How would you like to leave this all behind, and come back with me?" she impishly asks.

Kenneth was in a quandary, thinking about his options.

_I can stay here, deal with the military way of life, and still have a 43 chance of dying every time I get into that cockpit. Deployments to Iraq, bad food, insane promotion pressure, and low pay; no one here would miss me if I died. _

_On the other hand, go with them to a new future. No Iraq, better living conditions, Asuka, maybe get to use my Engineering degree, twenty year-old Asuka in her bikini, VTOL and SST aircraft to pilot; she snuck out to come here for __me_

He broke off his internal monolog and took a quick look at his companions. Toji had moved away from Asuka to give them some breathing room and privacy. He was leaning against the left foot of his EVA unit, arms crossed against his chest with a warm smirk plastered on his face. He bore a semi-close resemblance to his anime counterpart, but was more mature and real looking. He then glanced at Asuka. Here, the similarity between anime and the real world were strikingly different. Gone was the haughty, petulant child of the series. In her place was a self-assured woman of surpassing beauty. As he looked into her eyes, he saw doubt and fear, but overlying those was one feeling:

Hope.

Twenty minutes later, Unit-02, holding Unit-00's entry plug, and Unit-09 clasped arms and silently disappeared from the German forest. The only thing left in the area was Kenneth's Volkswagen GTI. Inside the vehicle were two hair barrettes on the dash; one white with black stripes, the other red with black stripes.

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THREE DAYS LATER:

CNN NEWS:

JUNE 06, 2007

FIGHTER PILOT MISSING, PRESUMED KIDNAPPED BY TERRORISTS

Second Lieutenant Kenneth T. Harrington, from the Twenty-Second Fighter Squadron at Spangdahlem AB in Germany, has been missing for the past weekend, and is presumed to have been kidnapped by Islamic Fundamentalists in reprisal for……..

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Translation Notes:

Ein Bier, bitte. A beer, please.

Monku bakkari iu-nayo! Stop complaining! Quit yer bitchin'!

Baka yaro! You're stupid!

Inpo! Impotent! Wimp!

Konjö nashi! You ain't got cojones!

Potato-boy Potatoes are grown in the country, so, country boy or hick; hillbilly.

Christmas cake Japanese euphemism for unmarried women over thirty. No one wants a Christmas cake (or tree) after Christmas. O.O

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A/N:

The destruction of the Sixteenth Angel slingshot Rei's entry plug to OUR time and dimension. As she traveled through the vortex, due to the explosion, she rapidly aged five years. Using the EVA units to travel is a different matter; no ageing takes place while moving between dimensions.

No Rei in the EVA timeline, no soul for the clones! Gendo's plans for _his_ version of Instrumentality were crushed. He then turned on SELEE, and all the baddies went into a feeding frenzy. The uncorrupted portions of the UN stepped in; arrested, tried, and executed SELEE and Commander Ikari for crimes against humanity.

It only took Doctor Akagi FIVE YEARS!! to find out where Rei went.

Negative o-nine Taken from the first episode, where Akagi states the chances of activating Unit-01, while on the lift (elevator).

Hope you liked my little divergence to the scenario.

Please R&R

Jintsu

**- **


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